title: The imaginary part of coherency in autism: differences in cortical functional connectivity in preschool children.
abstract: Cognition arises from the transient integration and segregation of activity across functionally distinct brain areas. Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), which encompass a wide range of developmental disabilities, have been presumed to be associated with a problem in cortical and sub-cortical dynamics of coordinated activity, often involving enhanced local but decreased long range coordination over areas of integration. In this paper we challenge this idea by presenting results from a relatively large population of ASD children and age-matched controls during a face-processing task. Over most of the explored domain, children with ASD exhibited enhanced synchronization, although finer detail reveals specific enhancement/reduction of synchrony depending on time, frequency and brain site. Our results are derived from the use of the imaginary part of coherency, a measure which is not susceptible to volume conduction artifacts and therefore presents a credible picture of coordinated brain activity. We also present evidence that this measure is a good candidate to provide features in building a classifier to be used as a potential biomarker for autism.
authors.affiliation: Temerty Centre for Therapeutic Brain Intervention, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada ; Milton and Ethel Harris Research Initiative, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: García Domínguez
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stieben
authors.forename: José Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Pérez Velázquez
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shanker
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D006801:Humans; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013997:Time Factors